


Touchpool Clouds

by voleuse



Category: The Good Wife
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-02
Updated: 2010-09-02
Packaged: 2017-10-12 09:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>You ask if I can taste shark</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touchpool Clouds

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime after S1. Title and summary adapted from Aimee Nezhukumatathil's _Touchpool_.

Eli inclined his head as he slunk out of the office, and Alicia sank back in her chair, feeling dirty. She pinched the bridge of her nose and willed away her migraine.

"I thought you might need this." Something aluminum clinked against the desk, accompanied by a soft, liquid slosh.

Alicia looked up at Kalinda, surprised. "I didn't hear you come in."

Kalinda smiled. "You were busy lamenting ambition."

"Mine or Eli's?" Alicia asked.

"Maybe both," Kalinda responded. "Maybe none of the above. Are you working late?"

"Not unless somebody gets murdered," Alicia said. "Everything should be filed by six."

"We'll have a drink, then," Kalinda said, and she turned perfectly on her heel as she exited.

Alicia remembered, then, the clink and the slosh. And she laughed, because it was a bottle of disinfectant spray. Later, Courtney asked her why she was polishing the furniture, but Alicia just smiled and shrugged.

*

Alicia always knew better, when she went out drinking with Kalinda. She knew better, because the kids were waiting at home, and Peter would glower, and Jackie was just unbearable sometimes. She knew better, because there was a new client the next morning, and she needed to review the finer points of the case, and the judge's record, and the client's billing status. She knew better because she'd always been the person who knew better.

It had taken a few months for Alicia to realize she didn't really like the person she'd always been.

So Kalinda teased and taunted her, and Alicia followed her lead, and tequila burned sweeter when she drank it from a shot glass.

"Thanks for the Lysol," Alicia mentioned. Kalinda laughed at her, reached out and brushed her fingers across the salt grains lingering at the side of her mouth. "Thanks," Alicia repeated.

The bartender poured their shots before they asked. Alicia licked salt from the back of her hand, watching Kalinda bite into a wedge of lime. She tipped her head back as she drank.

Kalinda's arm snaked around her neck, and Alicia slid off her stool when their lips met, lime bursting tart along her tongue.

*

She woke to the trill of Kalinda's phone, and she lunged up, panicked before she noticed the time on the unfamiliar alarm clock. Alicia breathed lightly, quickly. _Midnight, not dawn_. Kalinda murmured into her phone, displeasure lacing her voice, impatience coiling over her shoulders.

Alicia looked away, feeling guilty. She slid her legs off the bed, fumbled at the floor until she located her panties. She was half-dressed, in trousers and bra, when Kalinda set her phone down. "Who was that?" she asked, keeping the question neutral.

"Old business," Kalinda answered. She looked back over her shoulder, the blue light of the alarm clock casting shadows across her naked back.

Alicia smiled. "It's all old business, isn't it?"

"Is it too late?" Kalinda rolled to her side, unrepentant. "I'll call you a cab."

"Thanks." Alicia found her blouse, and the lamp clicked on as she buttoned up. She settled back on the bed, and Kalinda eased closer, but not close enough to kiss. Alicia leaned back and felt the tension in Kalinda's arms. "We can split one."

A pause. "It's on my way."

"You're supposed to be mysterious," Alicia said, and Kalinda tugged her hair back, finally kissed the back of her neck.

"You're one to talk."

*

The new client was downtrodden, and spiteful because of it. Alicia let David take point; she knew why he'd asked her to take second chair, after all. When Kalinda tapped on the conference room door, David glared.

Kalinda held her hand up, closed it into a fist, then spread her fingers again. _Ten minutes?_

Alicia tilted her head, and Kalinda retreated. David cleared his throat, a cue, and Alicia leaned forwards, clasping her hands on the table.

"Mr. Travis, I understand how betrayed you must feel." The client nodded, and Alicia tightened her lips--not a smile, but an understanding. "You gave everything up for your partner, didn't you?"

"Yes," the client said, and David settled back, as if to watch the show.

*

Courtney was typing in her office, and paralegals scurried back and forth in the halls. Alicia cursed the windows stretching from floor to ceiling, because Kalinda was already sitting on the sofa, toying with buckle of her watch.

Alicia pulled the door closed, and the watch dropped from Kalinda's wrist onto the floor.

"Oops."

"Are you teasing me?" Alicia asked. She dropped her armload of folders on her desk, then leaned back in her chair.

Kalinda smirked. "You came in late this morning." She unzipped her jacket, revealing a thin camisole.

"Did I?" Alicia braced her feet on the floor, the desk blocking the view of her legs from the hallway. She slipped one foot from a shoe, and the hem of her skirt twisted in her hands. "I didn't realize."

"Is everything all right?" Kalinda's eyes flicked to the hallway, tracing an intern's path.

Alicia spread her knees an inch wider, and Kalinda's attention snapped back immediately. "Everything's fine. I overslept." She folded her hands strategically, and Kalinda shifted on the sofa. "It's nice of you to worry."

"I've been thinking about taking a cigarette break," Kalinda said. She pressed her legs together, a counter-mirror to Alicia's movements.

"You don't smoke," Alicia noted.

"If I did," Kalinda observed, "I could be on the roof in five minutes."

"Is that so?" Alicia slouched just slightly, keeping her best non-expression on her face. "I imagine a good number of people take their breaks up there."

"Actually, no," Kalinda responded. "The firm's been strongly discouraging smoking during office time. Something about health insurance."

"But that wouldn't stop you?"

Kalinda stood, zipping her jacket up again. "They've also been recommending more exercise." She sauntered out, and Alicia noticed her watch lying abandoned on the floor.

It was only courteous to give it back to her.

*

Afterwards, Kalinda was, to Alicia's surprise, short of breath. She leaned against the brick of the stairwell and laughed. "I wasn't sure you'd follow me," she finally managed.

Alicia slid her hands under Kalinda's camisole, encountering streaks of sweat. She wondered about the state of her own clothes, feeling a flicker of despair.

Kalinda pushed her jacket off her shoulders. "It's cool today," she said. "You'll be fine."

"What about you?" Alicia asked.

"I have my ways." Kalinda arched forward, pulled Alicia into her arms. She tasted like coffee and faintly of cigarettes. At Alicia's look, Kalinda shrugged. "For form's sake."

The silk of her blouse rucked uncomfortably against her back, and Alicia shivered, partly from the breeze. "I hope you don't expect me to--"

Kalinda bit her earlobe, her throat. "Let them think what they want," she murmured.

"It doesn't work that way," Alicia protested, but she settled back into a kiss.


End file.
